Dennis Mugaa

It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends.

—Joan Didion, “Goodbye to All That”

Nairobi began for me one day about ten years ago. I was eighteen years old and it was a few months after I finished high school. I’d just gotten off the bus station near Odeon that sunny morning and walked to the National Archives. On the way I tried not to let the chaos of the city overwhelm me: conductors banging on the side of matatus as they called for more passengers, traders who’d spread their wares on the ground and the cars which didn’t seem to obey any traffic rule. I was wearing a pair of jeans and a fake Gucci T-shirt which I didn’t even know was fake. Because these were my best clothes, I thought they gave the impression that I belonged to the city. Now, I realize that they did, but not in the way I’d hoped. I was going to meet a group of friends from high school who, according to the stories they told me on our long phone calls and text messages, seemed to be enjoying life in the city. They’d told me in great detail how they spent their days in gaming cafes, lounging through French and German classes at Alliance Française and Goethe-Institut, playing basketball at the Railway Club courts, and hanging out with pretty girls — whom I’d only ever seen in Insyder Magazine — at the food court in Nakumatt Lifestyle.

It is difficult, I think, for those people who were born and raised in Nairobi to understand the position the city occupies in the imagination of those who were born and raised elsewhere. The older generation in Meru — the town I was born in — used to refer to Nairobi as the “Green City in the Sun” because of the national park in the city and just how green and full of trees it was back then. For a long time, up until the devolution of government, centralization meant that for anyone to access any crucial government service they had to come to Nairobi. I had been to the city several times before, but always on a short visit, or in transit to somewhere else. In all those times I’d never attempted to situate myself as a local, as someone who needed knowledge of the city’s geography for my survival. The longest I’d stayed in Nairobi before was when I was seven years old. I’d almost died from measles and I spent about three weeks in Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital convalescing. However, the only things I remember from my hospital stay are the playground where I played with the other sick children, the trees with chirping birds around the hospital and the brightly painted ward in which the nurses came to check on us. 

That sunny morning, as I walked from the National Archives to meet my friends, I was afraid of a lot of things. I’d heard so many negative stories about Nairobi, and I wondered if I would survive it, or if I would be swallowed by it. I was afraid that people would think that I didn’t know the city. I’d heard of people who came to Nairobi and were robbed as soon as they got off the bus; I’d heard of ‘double-your-money’ con artists who confused you until you gave them everything you had. There was a set book we used to read in our Fasihi classes in high school, Utengano by Said A. Mohamed, in which the main character, Maimuna, runs away from home to live in a city. She loses her way and drowns in the city’s pleasures until she can no longer recognize herself. To me, the story stood out as what the city could do to someone. I’d been instructed on how to conduct myself while in Nairobi: to walk looking straight ahead as if I knew where I was going even if I was lost, and, if I was indeed lost, to only ask for directions from a security guard. I was also told that I should wear a mean look so that it appeared as if I needed to be somewhere urgently. In the end, I reached where I was going safely that first day and I was thrilled.

*

My early days in Nairobi were more carefree than the ones which came after simply because I didn’t know much about the city except the things we had been taught in history and geography class. I knew, for instance, that parts of modern-day Nairobi were ancestral Maasai land, that the name Nairobi is derived from the Maasai phrase “Enkare Nyirobi,” or “a place of cool waters,” and that the city came into being in the 1890s as a stop point for the Uganda Railway; there was a rushed mention of the arrest of Harry Thuku in 1922 and a massacre of people who had marched protesting for his release, and finally, in primary school, there used to be a trivia question about which Kenyan province was shaped like a fish. The correct answer was Nairobi. Other than that, I didn’t carry any knowledge of the city that would have led to a critical examination of it since our education was like that — full of facts and things we needed to know to pass the national examination but lacking any real analysis of what those things meant. Unfortunately, it does seem to me that, when I did eventually acquire my critical lens, everything suddenly seemed gray and sad. 

However, before things became colored in this gray filter, I moved around the city with freedom and also completely without a plan. I went to places simply because someone could go there. In 2013, during my first April in the city I went to the inauguration ceremony of President Uhuru Kenyatta at Kasarani Stadium. It was an extremely hot day and the stadium was full of his supporters. People waved red and yellow flags, the colors of the winning coalition, and when Kenyatta came into the stadium the crowd erupted in joy. The section in which I sat was not protected from the sun and my eyes hurt, the seat was uncomfortable, and I was hungry because the ceremony had delayed to start. By the time it got underway I thought I would faint. I questioned my wisdom in going there in the first place. It was a remarkable moment, not least because at the time Kenyatta was on trial at the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity, and yet here he was being cheered on by the very same people the ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, said he had persecuted. The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, made a speech condemning Western nations for trying to use the ICC to impose leaders of their choice on Africans. There was a Mexican wave, but I don’t remember if I stood or continued sitting, and the crowd chanted, “Si Uchawi, ni maombi!” Through the crowd I saw something which had a touch of the divine, a large proclamation of the date of the inauguration, Tuesday Ninth of April, whose initials spelt out Kenyatta’s party, TNA. Later that day, I went to the luncheon held at State House as I had an invitation card. As I was not one of Kenyatta’s supporters and hadn’t even voted, I went because of the promise of food. At the time, I used to say ‘I don’t follow politics,’ a statement which, since I was attending a political event, I now realize didn’t make sense.

That year, I also went on my first date with a girl I had liked in high school. We went to the food court at Nakumatt Lifestyle, ate fries, drank passion fruit juice and talked about the release of our KCSE results and what we wanted to study at university. I must have walked her to Parliament Road later, although I don’t quite remember where she was going and we must have also said that we would meet again. But we never planned anything again.

The more I stayed in Nairobi, the more it provided me with a path through which I could discover something of myself. I was very impatient in my late teens and early twenties, and this impatience made me want to do so many things at the same time. I tried to be a tech entrepreneur, inspired by the film The Social Network, and there was in Nairobi a sense that it would be the next technology hub. The tech ecosystem in Kenya, known as Silicon Savannah, was emerging, with grandiose state projects like Konza City. I’d hoped to capitalize on tech’s obsession with young entrepreneurs and maybe even appear in Forbes, whose Africa 30 under 30 list I had read and felt I could make one day. I’d go to iHub on Saturdays when it used to be at the Bishop Magua building along Ngong Road, order coffee, sit in the open plan working space and open C++ or Python or JavaScript. I had minimal knowledge of programming, but I’d google most things. On some weekends I attended independently organized TEDx talks. I learned to be familiar with the language of tech as well. Words like “accelerator” and “pitch” easily rolled off my tongue. I ended up failing in this endeavor, of course, and this was because I was more attracted to the glamor of the tech world rather than building anything useful.  

I took piano lessons at the Kenya Conservatoire of Music every Wednesday and Friday. My teacher was a middle-aged woman who was always so patient in teaching me how to move through the keys. She’d place the music sheet on the board and instruct me on which chords to play, for how long I should hold them, and what effect the piece achieved if everything was played correctly. Music moved through the rooms in peaceful notes, giving me joy and a sense of calm. I studied piano for a few months before I ran out of money. Sadly, I never went back. 

*

Most Nairobians dream of making enough money to leave the city, because in Nairobi the hustle is endless. They dream of retiring to a farm in the countryside, or in a house by the beach on the coast. It is difficult to appreciate Nairobi when one lives in the city, and it is only when one moves away from it that one gains a clear-eyed view of what it has. 

Once, when I was in England for a year, I saw a painting by the Sudanese artist Ibrahim El-Salahi at the Tate Modern in London. Reborn Sounds of Childhood Dreams I, with its ghostly hollow figures that still managed to evoke beauty and the clash of memory and time, reminded me of the contrast of places in Nairobi. The painting was completed with a fabric cut from a large cloth, with the other parts of that cloth never being found again. This made me think of parts of Nairobi which had been forgotten about or lost in the city’s palimpsest. I felt a deep nostalgia for Nairobi that was even more pronounced during the winter months. On some evenings I’d put on a Spotify playlist and light candles. Through the music I would recreate Nairobi and a map of the city would rise, like a borderless mural floating in the air. I’d see the city not as geography but as a series of memories. I remembered how mornings poured through softly like masala being sprinkled on tea. I remembered the glorious calmness of Maasai herders who brought rush-hour traffic to a standstill as they passed with their cattle. I remembered the serenity of the nature trail at Karura Forest. I remembered the beautiful girls who took mirror selfies at Social House, pouting and holding up the peace sign. I remembered the music festivals and nightclubs which we went to, the music pulsing with our racing heartbeats as my friends and I danced, and I remembered the food — fish cooked in coconut stew, samosas served hot. 

One of my fondest memories of being in Nairobi was one New Year’s Eve a few years ago. My friends and I had planned to watch a show of fireworks at midnight, and as midnight approached we drove to a road in Upper Hill where several people had gathered. It was cold and, although the breeze blew past us, we didn’t feel deterred. A father supported his daughter on his shoulders and photographers checked their gear to make sure everything was in order. We started the countdown and, when midnight arrived, the fireworks splintered the air, filling up the night sky with a variety of colors. We went out afterwards and danced until morning. When the city was like this, it sounded like good music injected straight into the veins. 

I now know for sure that Nairobi is a city designed for the young even though it is owned by the old. Time moves so quickly in Nairobi. It feels as though, thinking of it now, I walked down a Nairobi street at eighteen and, before I’d reached its end, ten years had already passed. I think, therefore, that it must be a tragedy to arrive in Nairobi in old age. It reminds me of Isidora, the beautiful city in Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities that a young man dreams of, except when he gets there he is already in his old age and the only thing he can do is sit with the other old men in the city square, his desires already memories. If you arrive in Nairobi in old age, you’ll watch the young people from a distance as they struggle to help one of their drunk friends into the car after a night of drinking, you’ll see the industrious hawker trying to sell red roses to one of the girls, then you’ll see one of the friends racing back to buy choma sausage with kachumbari from the food place outside the club.  When all of them finally get into the car after several minutes, the owner of the car will say to the drunk one, “If you puke in the car, you’ll wash it!” Then they’ll drive off, music blaring from the open windows.

*

Nairobi is a city of two halves. It is highly segregated and has been this way since colonial times. Where there is a wealthy suburb in the city, there is often a marginalized urban area bordering it. Karen is bordered by Kibera, Muthaiga by Mathare, and Runda by Githogoro. 

I worked as a volunteer for the Mathare Green Movement some years ago. We planted trees to improve the environment and to honor the young men who’d died from police violence through the years. We also had community education sessions at the Mathare Social Justice Centre, where people talked about the environment and also about the extrajudicial killings of their friends. We talked about the pollution of rivers in Mathare, the lack of green spaces and greenery, and how this environmental injustice was linked to the government’s contempt for the city’s low-income residents. Some people spoke of how police officers extorted money from them whenever they tried to start a business, and others about how officers solicited bribes when they encountered them at night by threatening arrest over possession of drugs or gang membership. There was also a video we discussed in which a police officer in Eastleigh steps on the back of an unarmed young man he then shoots dead as a crowd gathers at the scene. This was the side of Nairobi I hadn’t been aware of until then, the violence of it.

Crucially, at the Mathare Social Justice Centre, we explored why the city was like this, why such suffering had been normalized and why the government showed little or no concern for its most marginalized communities. Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth was instrumental in helping us understand how postcolonial governments never quite sought to destroy or change the colonial system but only to replace the colonizers and maintain the status quo.

Injustice is never far away in Nairobi. From time to time the city council askaris mount operations to arrest undocumented traders, but in doing so they are known to arbitrarily arrest pedestrians and others who have committed no crime. One day a friend of mine, a writer of note, was arrested in this manner. She was arraigned in court and I attended her court sessions. They were quite shambolic, and even before they started I would see so many people taking plea for minor offenses like loitering whether or not they were guilty of such an offense. I learnt that it was easier to plead guilty and pay a fine rather than go through a lengthy court process. My friend pleaded not guilty, and her case took about a year to be resolved in her favor.

Nairobi is a city of pretense. Nothing is as it seems. One moment you think you know the city and the next moment it betrays you. It shows you that you know nothing. In 2015, when Barack Obama was visiting, the streets of Nairobi were cleaned up and even grass was planted to grow days ahead of his arrival. Nairobi was made to look like it didn’t have street children or beggars, who were swept away to a different location only for them to reappear after Obama had left. 

While walking through the city, you’ll see it is in a state of constant construction. You’ll think, “Eh! Nairobi is really developing,” and then you’ll meet someone (sometimes with credible evidence, sometimes with dubious evidence) who will tell you the buildings are being built with stolen public funds. And if you arrive as a tourist at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, you’ll use the Nairobi Expressway, newly built by the China Road and Bridge Corporation. You’ll pay the toll that many drivers cannot consistently afford and you’ll pass through the city without experiencing the traffic and the inefficient public transport system that is the curse of many Nairobians. Since the road is built above highways, you’ll see the city from the waist up and marvel at the crafted artificial sense of being in a world-class city. If you’re a first-time tourist going on safari and you’ve always heard a single story about Africa, you’ll ask yourself, perhaps in disappointment, “Where is the poverty?” You’ll not see the trees that were felled to make way for the road, you’ll also not see the inadequate drainage, how the roads below you become flooded when it rains. And you’ll also not see the road for what it is: a symbol of inequality.

*

A period which encapsulates how I’ve ever experienced the nature of Nairobi was when I worked in a bookshop along Mama Ngina Street. The bookshop was near City Hall, the Supreme Court and Parliament. My hours (Monday to Friday) were from nine in the morning to six in the evening, with a thirty-minute lunch break. On Saturday I worked until three in the afternoon. I managed the social media accounts, wrote articles on the bookshop’s website, posted about upcoming literary events with writers, took orders that arrived online and through phone calls, coordinated deliveries and, when it was possible, spoke to customers about books they thought of buying. 

I often arrived a few minutes late, when the bookshop was already open, walking in like the earliest customer. The bookshop ladder would be standing between a row of books and one of my workmates would reach for books on the top shelves. I would go through the previous evening’s orders and make sure they were packaged and ready for delivery. If the bookshop had new book arrivals, I made social media posts about them. Then I would pick up a book I liked and start to read. A few minutes later something else would require my attention. By mid-morning customers would start streaming in, and I was often asked to speak to them. I would bookmark the page and walk around with the book, a promise that I had not abandoned it. 

When the bookshop was busy, I enjoyed the feeling. I could manage five or six tasks and keep track of them, and when Nairobi exploded in movement, when performers came into the streets in the evenings, I felt as if I was in motion with the city. Often, the people who came to the bookshop were professionals. Several lawyers came, because many law courts and law firms had offices nearby, and there were government officials, professors, journalists, and, my favorite group, perhaps because I had recently been one, university students. 

Because the bookshop was near Parliament and City Hall, we were often in the middle of protests and demonstrations. When this happened, anti-riot police officers fired tear gas at protestors. The choking fumes entered the bookshop, and we had to hurriedly shut down and go to the back of the store where an enclosed parking space shielded us from the chaos. We’d run cold water over our faces to wash off the effects of the gas. 

One afternoon a woman walked in. She appeared to be in her mid-fifties and she was downcast as she walked past me. She looked around the bookshop, and after some time she came toward me and asked, “Do you have any books about grief?” Her eyes were piercing, burrowing into me. 

“Fiction?” I asked, but she said no.

I thought through the non-fiction titles we had in stock and said, “No, sorry.”

We talked a little longer. We talked about some books on Israel and Palestine we had in stock. I remember she smiled and listened keenly as I spoke, telling her that, if she was open to fiction, she could read Toni Morrison and hopefully find in her work soothing words. 

 “I lost my son,” she said suddenly. “He died in the terrorist attack in January. In Dusit.”

Her tone was uneven, as if her voice might break anytime. She seemed to be hurting deeply, a woman desperately trying to understand her grief. I didn’t know what to say and I felt embarrassed by the inadequacy of my book suggestions. We stood there for a while, in silence, without moving and I wished I could take her pain away. 

“Thank you for your help,” she said as she started to leave. “What is your name?”

I told her my first name.

“That was my son’s name,” she said, her eyes turning slightly red.

*This essay was first published in The Weganda Review — April to June 2024 issue